Showing posts with label Angola. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Angola. Show all posts

December 25 - Christmas Day

  Posted on December 25, 2021


This is an update of my post published on December 25, 2010:




This is my favorite holiday! I love arranging our collections of nutcrackers and Santas and snowmen, I love the beauty of twinkling lights on a great-smelling and highly decorated tree, and of course I especially love getting together with family for food and gifts and fun.



Part of the fun is getting ready—finding special treats that my grandkids will love, baking our family's favorite cookies, counting down the days on an advent calendar. 

Even though I love Christmas, I understand why some people bemoan the commercialism of the holiday, and why some people who are not Christians or who (for whatever reason) do not celebrate Christmas feel left out or even irritated by the pervasiveness of Christmas in the U.S.


I like to buy the occasional Christmas decoration, but I often
make my own, as well. I love having an eclectic - one might
say mixed-up-looking collection of decorations!


Christmas hasn't always been around!

At the beginning of the religion of Christianity, there was no such holiday as Christmas. There is no good reason to think that Jesus of Nazareth was born on December 25; as a matter of fact, there is no indication in the Bible of what day, month, or even season Jesus was born. When 4th-Century Christians (in other words, people who lived hundreds of years after the writing of the Gospels and other parts of the New Testament) decided that it would be nice to celebrate Jesus's birth as well as his death (and re-birth, according to believers), any date seemed equally likely or unlikely. So Pope Julius I chose a time of year that was already a time of fun and celebration, at the end of the Roman festival of Saturnalia, near the Winter Solstice.

Some Christians do not celebrate the holiday because of the shaky historical origins of the chosen date (or for other reasons). Puritans who first settled the New England area were opposed to the holiday, and celebrating Christmas in Boston was actually against the law from 1659 to 1681.

After the American Revolution, many English customs—including the Christmas holiday—became less popular, and the first U.S. Congress after the ratification of the Constitution, December 25, 1789, Congress was in session.

Christmas was not declared a federal holiday in the U.S. until 1870.



For more on Christmas, check out other December entries and entries from other years (in the "Also on this date" section below).



Also...

In the Republic of Congo, it's Children's Day, and in both Angola and Mozambique, it's Family Day.

What these three African nations have in common is a relatively recent time of Marxist government. During the Marxist regimes, Christmas Day was changed to Children's or Family Day celebrations.



I have a feeling that people in these African countries do pretty much the same thing every year, whether it's called Christmas or Family Day or whatever. They probably gather together with loved ones, eat together, perhaps exchange gifts, play games, dance or sing.





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September 17 – National Heroes Day in Angola

Posted on September 17, 2019

Today is the birthday of the arguably most important "Founding Father." 

I'm not talking about Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin or any other luminary from the founding of the United States. Instead, I'm talking about a Founding Father of the African nation of Angola.


Agostinho Neto was born in an Angolan village on this date in 1922. This was back when Angola was a Portuguese colony. Neto was one of the people who, in the 1960s and 1970s, led guerrilla efforts with the hope of ousting the Portuguese. The Carnation Revolution in Portugal ended up creating an opportunity for Angola to gain its independence in 1975 - and Neto became the nation's first president. 

Unfortunately, the newly independent Angola wasn't a bastion of freedom and democracy. And I am sort of surprised that, all these years later, Neto is still considered a hero. His tenure over Angola was marred by a civil war he helped to create; he established a one-party state, so voters had no real choices during elections; he was horrific in his repression of political enemies. Like, killing tens of thousands of his own citizens, because he thought they favored another leader??? Yikes!

Neto died in 1979. After he died, the Angolan civil war continued to cause enormous problems for the nation for more than two decades. Peace was finally reached in 2002, but although Angola is fairly stable now, most of the population lives in poverty. 

But check out some of the loveliness of the nation:









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May 4 – Cassinga Day in Namibia

Posted on May 4, 2019

Do humans love tragedy so much that violent storms and earthquakes aren't enough - that they go out of their way to cause needless tragedies?
Today the African nation of Namibia commemorates hundreds of victims of an attack by South Africa on Namibians in the town of Cassinga.

But...the town of Cassinga is located in the nation to the north of Namibia, in Angola!


During the time of the 1978 attack, Namibia was in a war of independence with South Africa, and it was using Cassinga as a training site and refugee camp.

 Namibia didn't gain full independence until 1990, and it didn't gain control of Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands until 1994!

 I always think of Namibia in terms of the gorgeous Namib and Kalahari Deserts...


...and the place where desert meets ocean...

...but let's check out the Penguin Islands:

 They are tiny and uninhabited, and they are scattered far and wide along the coastline. Some teeny "islands" are actually just rocks!
This old map was made back when Namibia was
German SouthWest Africa, before it became
territory of the United Kingdom and was administered
by South Africa.
BUT the Penguin Islands are more valuable than one would imagine, since they are rich in guano deposits (bird poop, used in fertilizers) and have even been a source of diamonds!

 The islands' name comes from the fact that African penguins lives there.



 In fact, lots of seabirds take sanctuary on the tiny islands. (No duh: guano!) One island, Mercury Island, is important in the life cycle of 80% of the world's black cormorants!



















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